What can other schools learn from Apollo?

Updated 7:48 pm, Tuesday, September 13, 2011

It's no coincidence that Houston has launched several of the country's best charter schools, and one of its most reform-minded school districts. New ideas make this city's heart beat. But as HISD starts the second year of the Apollo 20 project for troubled schools, it needs to start sharing its best innovations more widely.

Apollo 20 is HISD's three-year, $56 million project to rebuild nine failed schools. The tools: a number of educational policies gleaned from the most successful charters nationwide, including Houston's own Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP).

Like it or not, Apollo 20 took nerve. Focusing on just 8,500 of the district's 200,000 students, HISD has spent $6 million to buy out teachers unwilling to join the project. Remaining staff in Apollo schools have immersed themselves in hiring new leaders and teachers and scouring student scores to match at-risk youths with the right interventions.

The grand experiment aims to salvage Houston's worst schools - and to forge a new model other HISD schools can follow. But critics question its fairness. The outsized spending on a few shortchanges the majority, some have argued. And even if Apollo meets its goals, HISD clearly could never engage in that kind of spending again.

That's why, two years before Apollo ends, it's already time to spotlight the ideas affordable enough and scalable enough for all HISD schools to consider. Perhaps surprisingly, several already stand out.

Summertime as education time. Extending the academic day and year, one of the best-documented school success tactics, has also contributed to Apollo's stunning cost. But summer project packets can be doled out for free. Not only do they shore up what students learned during the year, they foster the independent thinking crucial in today's workforce.

Parent contracts. A KIPP cornerstone and Apollo policy, parent contracts will always carry less heft at public schools. Unlike charter schools, they can't dismiss students with uncooperative families. But many public school parents want their kids to succeed but have no model for what parents should do. Contracts outline how parents can be their children's first teacher.

Community buy-in. Though Apollo's tutoring initiative hasn't yet been assessed, it has already achieved something amazing. Paying $14 an hour, HISD attracted such a large, talented pool of community applicants that it chose only the top 30 percent. How did it do that? HISD needs to share its skills firing up community support with the whole district.

College-bound culture. With signs, peer pressure and relentless adult messaging starting in primary school, good charters permeate school culture with the assumption that all students will attend college. Apollo 20 schools, too, now ask pupils not if they'll attend college - but where. Dropping out is not an option.

Not all school reforms cost this little. Researchers know, for example, the bond between teacher and child will always be crucial, and nothing can replace expert recruitment and teacher training. But designing functional schools "is a recipe, not a matter of any one ingredient," said Jeffrey Capizzano, who has studied education initiatives for the federal government. "And good ideas are only as good as people's ability to implement them."

Thanks to its willingness to learn from successful charters, HISD has already showcased some accessible, well-documented ideas that could help all district schools. Openness to new ideas; using summer as school time; and effectively engaging students, parents and the public are Apollo 20's most scalable new ideas.

It's not too soon to applaud them, and to help the rest of HISD adapt them for their own students.